MTC’s workforce project in Egypt is off and running. One of the primary goals is to help Egypt’s Ministry of Education and Technical Education set up ten state-of-the-art, high-end technical schools within the country’s secondary school system.

The Workforce Egypt project, as it’s called, is funded by U.S. Agency for International Development or USAID.

These new schools MTC is helping create will be called International Applied Technology Schools and will require a higher level of admission qualifications for students graduating from 9th to 10th grade and entering the technical education track.

MTC is helping to launch the first six of these schools by arranging funding from six private sector companies, each of which will sponsor one school in a specialized training area. To kick off this effort, MTC’s team in Egypt organized a major ceremonial event to sign the agreements with each of the six companies.

It was huge success. The U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, Jonathan Cohen, speaking on behalf of the project funder, USAID, underscored the U.S.’s commitment to help Egypt advance its technical education program and to support the effort to provide more skilled workers—especially youth—to the Egyptian economy.

During the opening ceremony, the Minister of Public Business emphasized the importance of public/private partnerships to meet the demands of Egypt’s growing economy. His comments were complemented by the Minister of Planning who emphasized the importance of creating high quality International Applied Technology Schools as part of Egypt’s overall economic development plan.

Following each of these two ministers, the Minister of Education and Technical Education, Dr. Tarek Shawky, spoke to the importance of the relationship between the private sector and technical education as partners in ensuring that training is in line with the demand for skilled labor.

MTC was represented by Greg Niblett, Vice President of Economic & Social Development, who welcomed participants to the event and gave an overview of all of the components of the USAID funded Workforce Egypt project.

Following the opening ceremony remarks of the dignitaries, Joseph Ghanem, MTC‘s project director for Workforce Egypt joined his excellency, Minister Shawky, in co-signing the six memorandums of understanding with each of the companies. They include:

Fresh, Misr Insurance, Diefalla Group, Fathalla Markets, El-Sewedy Electrometer Company, and AfroEgypt, all of whom provide various specialized technical services in Egypt.

The signing event received major news coverage in Egypt, which will enhance perception of technical and vocational education as a respected career option for Egyptian youth.

MTC’s growing Workforce Egypt team now numbers more than 100 staff, mostly in an office in Cairo but with several in 15 satellite offices around the country.